Today we have a special guest. On the spirit phone is Samuel J. Crumbine, a Kansas doctor and public health pioneer. He campaigned against the common drinking cup, invented the flyswatter, and ordered bricks telling us not to spit on the sidewalk.
Dr. Crumbine, welcome to the column.
Thanks, glad to be here. Actually, I’m glad to be anywhere, since I died in 1954. Where am I, exactly?
A better question might be “when” are you. The year is 2020. You’re piped into my home office on Constitution Street in Emporia, Kansas.
How does that work?
I’m not sure, but don’t hit the red button on your end.
Yes, I see it. What’s it do?
Nobody knows, but the plans Thomas Edison left behind for the spirit phone explicitly say not to touch the red button. … Now, doctor, you spent your early career practicing medicine in Dodge City when it was a rip-roaring cattle town.
Oh, those cowboys! Now, that will teach you something about how disease spreads.
In fact, you were the inspiration for Doc, the character played by Milburn Stone on the television series “Gunsmoke.”
Sorry, never saw it. But I didn’t like how the doctor was portrayed on the radio. Too dark. …
Dr. Crumbine, the reason you’ve been summoned is to discuss a more urgent matter. Kansas again finds itself in the grip of a killer virus, part of a global pandemic like the one you saw in 1918 when you were the chief of the Kansas State Board of Health. This one is a little different — it doesn’t target mostly young people, like last time — but the trajectory of the epidemic has been disturbingly similar to that of a century ago.
How can I help?
Give us some insight into how, as the state’s chief medical officer, you dealt with it.
(Whistles). How much time do you have?
